An Israeli airstrike killed five people in central Beirut on Monday, Lebanon's health ministry said, the second day in a row Israel has hit a target within the capital as it presses its campaign against Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah.

United States envoy Amos Hochstein is due to visit the Lebanese capital Beirut “imminently” after Lebanon responded “positively” to a US-backed proposal to stop the Israel-Hezbollah war, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said on Monday.

Lebanon's health ministry said Israel struck a densely packed Beirut neighbourhood on Monday, killing at least four people, in the third attack in two days on the city's central districts.Several hundreds of metres (yards) away was the site of a similar strike on Sunday,